


B is for Bas [thing]

by OtakuElf



Series: YADAA (Yet Another Dragon Age Alphabet) [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Gen, NaNoWriMo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-21
Updated: 2014-11-21
Packaged: 2018-02-26 11:11:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2649911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtakuElf/pseuds/OtakuElf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sten's reflections on his place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	B is for Bas [thing]

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Lunamoth116 for beta-ing this on short notice!
> 
> Any errors in Qunari info/the Qun, please drop me a note so that I can fix them!

The Sten had been released from a tight, worked metal cage in the village of Lothering. Freed only from the flat steel bars and not from the wrongness separating the Sten from the Qun. He is not Qun any longer. He cannot be Qun. The Sten had not wished for release. The Qun does not encourage seeking death. The Sten had not been seeking it. He had, however, been waiting patiently for the end.

Released by _bas_. A stranger, not one of the Qun. Not Qunari. One of the Qun would not have spared him a glance upon knowing his disgrace. He, a Sten of the Beresaad, is nothing. Unworthy, and in service to this odd Dalish-elven-Grey Warden. The Sten was now missing a piece of himself. His soul, Asala, is gone.

They did not notice his loss, these strange people with whom he travelled. There is no understanding that she has gone, his Asala. They are not unobservant, for the most part. Merely ignorant. And odd. As has been said. It is not that those formerly of the _elvhen_ are odd, or could not seek worth in the Qun. The Sten has served with members of the Qun who had once thought themselves Dalish, or members of the various alienages. There are those of the Qun who were born of Orzammar, though those were rare - enormously so. Their worship of the stone, of their ancestors - as though worth could be found for one in the present through the actions of those who came before - is even more confusing than the insistence of these Dalish on their rediscovered deities. Or the humans with their absent Maker god and burned, dead Andraste. Could one create a god, then put total faith in it to the extent that one assigned all morality to its whims? The gods were not responsible for the Qun. The gods were not of the Qun. The Fereldans’ Maker, doing nothing - presumably after creating Thedas - he was not to be compared with the kossith gods. Abandonment. That was all their Maker was for. Possibly this overarching creator was exhausted from the effort. It made no sense. 

The Qun. That made sense. It was right. The Qun was not a sentient being, separate and complete from its followers, feeding off their worship. It _was_. They _were_. The Qun was each body part, whether Sten or Arishok, or Ben-Hassrath, whether male or female, whether human or elven or dwarven or kossith. Each had a place, a task, and to deviate from that task was unthinkable. There was choice: to be correct, or to cease to be.

The Sten was now a deviation. He regretted his actions. Not bitterly, or angrily, but totally, from the moment he had let slip his sword, passing into unconsciousness at the hands of the darkspawn near Lake Calenhad. He had no clue. No way to search for it, his soul, Asala.

“What is the Blight?” The Sten had failed to answer the question for the Arishok. The taller Grey Warden, Alistair, had stated that Sten had the answer to the question. Had they not been traveling through a Blight-torn Ferelden? Had the Sten not been sitting in a cage waiting for either hunger or the darkspawn to eat him alive? “Was that not what the Blight was all about?” Alistair had asked.

Alistair was in need of the Qun. His jokes and tales did not deceive the Sten. Alistair did not know his place, had indeed attempted to escape it time after time. One did not choose, or desire to lead; one accepted it. One was a leader because it was the place ordained by the order of things. Alistair would need to accept. The Sten had watched this man. King’s offspring. The Qun kept track of lineage strictly. Breeding was a matter for society, not for personal desire. This Maric would have been better occupied with an intelligent selection of breeding partners to increase the number of children being bred for his attributes rather than hiding his second. It seemed that Maric was what the bard, Leliana, would call “charming”. Manipulation of people was a necessary skill. Particularly when dealing with _bas_. One day it would no longer be needed. Now, ambassadors were assigned. This charm was currently useful. It was, for the _bas_ , an aspect of leadership.

Alistair, however, was damaged. Madness to allow a child to be raised by a rival, and expect it to survive unscathed. But then, in the Qun rivalry was unthinkable. There was competition, but only to the betterment of the Qun. Not for personal gain.

And did the blood and bone of this Maric, King of Ferelden, mean one’s place was as a leader? The Sten thought not. The Warden, however, saw something different in his fellow.

The Warden. Theron Mahariel. A grown man of the Dalish, poisoned by the taint and brought into the Grey Wardens to put his talents to use in the battle against the Blight. Callow, the Sten had thought, immature and unthinking of the consequences of his actions. The Sten had attempted to convey this, that the whole must be considered, not the individual.

The Warden had thought otherwise. Maherial had looked to the old woman, the mage, Bas Saarebas - a dangerous thing - Wynne, as he spoke of it. “The parts of the body need to be cared for, so that the whole can flourish.”

This was in regard to their discussion on the place of mages in the world. Mages. Saarebas. Not _bas_ , not a thing, but worse. Saarebas - a dangerous thing. A cancer that could destroy the body of the Qun. Wynne had her uses. As a healer she was quite good. Often putting her own comforts last, as Bas Saarebas should. Healing was useful. There was the possibility that it could weaken one, if relied upon too often, but with their limited number, spells and potions were necessary. She had knit him a scarf when they last traveled to Orzammar, and that had been appreciated. It had been right. The place of females was in creation, whether it was of a craft, or a life. 

And, after all, Saarebas served a useful purpose in the battle against the Tevinter Imperium. Using their own cancer against them was fitting. Saarebas were not allowed to breed. Did one breed to increase vulnerability to a disease? No. But this world encouraged them, and the Qun would use them as needed. There were always others out in this world of Thedas who could not contain the needs of their flesh. Even Wynne had been bred, though she knew not what had become of the child. 

Wynne was uncontained. No stitching to close her mouth from unwanted comments that would lead others astray, nor her eyes to prevent casting evil glances. No chains to prevent the beast from escaping. The Grey Warden actively sought out the “wisdom” of this monstrosity. The Grey Warden traveled with not only this witch, but the other, Morrigan, as well.

Morrigan was proud, filled with arrogance. She had, rightly so, determined that his line was superior to the others, and made what she seemed to think were seductive comments. Her blatant attempts at inspiring him to copulate with her went beyond her more subtle offering to the Grey Warden. She and Alistair loathed one another. Such enmity would not have been allowed within the Qun. Both would have been broken and reeducated to the correct path. Or rather, Alistair would have been subjected to proper education, while the witch would have been bound as a Saarebas, no longer able to put forth her acidic comments, her angry attempts to divide others from the Grey Warden. A bound Saarebas served no other purpose than that of the Qun. A female saarebas, serving the craftspeople and farmers of Par Vollen.

As for the others, those the Grey Warden treated as his clan, even as a family unit, they were all working to their own selfish, chaotic advantage. A band of entertainers dressed in motley - much as Leliana would describe - while kept on course only by the will of Mahariel. The Sten knew much of what was discussed as they travelled, or stood watch in the late hours of the night. Because he did not speak much, it was assumed that he was not interested in the conversations. Untrue. He would take all of this information back to the Qun.

No. No, that was no longer his place. He was without a soul. The Sten would be killed before he had a chance to report. The others here - the dwarf, the elf, the humans - they referred to him as Sten - as though it were a name - or the Qunari. They were wrong. He was not _bas_. He was not even Tal-Vashoth. There was no word for what he was because he was not even a thing. He was nothing.

Now they were taking the long road to the Frostback Mountains, to the mouth of Orzammar, having discovered a name from the foul, reeking ghoul who scavenged those of his troop killed by the darkspawn. Scavenged, it seemed, after others had already taken the better pieces. He had turned quickly upon the man who had “sold him his spot”. Vashedan.

And why make this trip so far out of their path? Why seek out this creature who had stolen from the Qunari? Not for the sake of the Grey Warden task to seek alliance against the Archdemon. Like so many other of these distractions, these variations, these deviations from the correct path, the Grey Warden sought this path for his - the Sten’s - sake. These seekings after what were surely inconsequentials to Mahariel’s goal made the Sten doubt. He doubted the Grey Warden’s leadership. He doubted the Grey Warden’s determination and devotion to the task. He doubted the Grey Warden’s fitness for this duty. Certainly the Sten doubted Alistair in all of these things, but the smaller _elvhen_ , the younger and newer Warden…he led them all and caused the Sten to doubt…what? 

Judgment. The Sten watched the Grey Warden, Theron Mahariel, _elvhen_ , Dalish clan member - for to name correctly was to understand, to misname was to blind oneself - the Sten watched him lead this disparate group of people, and bring them together into a working group outside of the sphere of the Qun. This made the Sten doubt himself. And as it had been said, “Doubt is the path one walks to reach faith. To leave the path is to embrace blindness and abandon hope." 

As they walked the rough mountain roads leading to Orzammar, where were they going? What would they find at the end of this path? Would this small step, this traveling solely for the sake of the Sten of the Beresaad’s soul, lead to the inevitable end dictated by the Qun? What was there to say but, _“Shok ebasit hissra. Meraad astaarit, meraad itwasit, aban aqun. Maraas shokra. Anaan esaam Qun.”_


End file.
